From World Cup to World Bank, climate actions rise

OSLO (Reuters) - The World Cup, a movie by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the World Bank are all doing their bit to fight global warming by using the burgeoning but barely regulated business of "carbon neutrality."
Holidaymakers, worried that jet fuel emissions are warming the planet, and firms such as Europe's biggest bank HSBC are also seeking to reduce damage to the environment.
"The market has ... exploded in the past 12 months," said Jonathan Shopley, managing director of The Carbon Neutral Co. in London whose clients include carmaker Honda and British broadcaster BSkyB.
"Carbon neutral" schemes typically invest in non-polluting wind, solar or hydropower projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America to offset emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil or gas.
Or they pay to plant trees, which soak up carbon by growing, or invest in renewable energy or energy-efficiency projects.
The aim is for governments, individuals or companies to prevent as much carbon emissions as they produce.
Once limited to a hard core of green activists, carbon neutral projects are winning wider favor.
"We're talking about millions of tons a year (of carbon dioxide offsets) instead of perhaps 100,000 a couple of years ago," Shopley said.
Still, the amounts are a pinprick in world emissions from human activities of more than 25 billion tons a year. Many scientists say global warming, widely blamed on greenhouse gases, could trigger more floods, droughts and heatwaves and drive up world sea levels.
REGULATIONS
The voluntary carbon trade lacks global rules or a central registry -- emissions could in theory be sold more than once. Prices for a ton of non-toxic carbon dioxide vary widely. .